


In Such Company

by brocanteur



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brocanteur/pseuds/brocanteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>from a fic prompt: “things you said when I was crying”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Such Company

The brownstone was hers. Morland Holmes had never liked her, just as she’d never liked him, not for all of the ways in which he had failed Sherlock, but in this one respect, at least, he had honored his son’s wishes. The brownstone, and all that it contained, belonged to Joan Watson.

Joan sat at the kitchen table, a cup of tea growing cold next to the stack of notes she had written in a haze over the last few weeks. She had thought she would write a book, but now she wasn’t sure. Marcus Bell had left her a message. There was work waiting for her, if she wanted it.

She wasn’t sure that she did. She wasn’t sure that she could be a detective anymore. She wasn’t sure about anything except that Sherlock was dead and the brownstone was hers. A month was not enough time to reconcile herself to those facts.

So she sat at the kitchen table, sipped lukewarm tea, and tried not to think at all. And just as Joan attempted the impossible, there was a knocking at the door.

People still came by, looking for him. He knew all sorts and they showed up at all hours. They were, invariably, sorry to hear the news. Not long after the funeral, his dealer had come around, wondering why it was he hadn’t heard from one of his better clients. Joan—furious, wounded, a bit out of her mind—had beaten him about the arms and shoulders with her baton until he’d run off, begging her to stop. She was almost sorry. He was a junkie, too. He was only a junkie.

The knocking continued. Joan considered ignoring it, but it went on for a solid minute and a headache had materialized, a throbbing behind her eyes.

“Okay,” she called, pinching the bridge of her nose, willing the noise away. “Okay.”

Okay. But it wasn’t, not when Joan opened the door. The woman on the other side of the threshold said, “Hello, Watson,” and Joan gazed at her for five long seconds before stepping aside to let her in. She should have told her to leave. She should have taken up the baton again. But she was tired. She was so very tired.

Moriarty looked unwell. There were dark bags under her eyes; her clothes were rumpled, perhaps from travel. Joan was reminded of Irene Adler, of how fragile she had seemed at the hospital, and her stomach twisted. She didn’t acknowledge her visitor, she simply sat once more by her tea and her notes, waiting.

There was nothing for a long while. Moriarty dropped her luggage by the door, shrugged off her coat and draped it over Sherlock’s favorite chair. She gave the living room a sweeping, significant look, as though she were searching for something. For someone.

“He’s dead,” Joan said.

Moriarty’s examination of the room ended as she turned her attention back to Joan.

“I know it.”

“Then why are you here?”

Moriarty stared at her, and Joan, who would never back down from a confrontation, not with her, stared back, fresh grief swelling, roiling, within her.

“I came to see you, Joan.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Moriarty turned on her heel, crossing the distance between them. She sat across from Joan, fingers laced as she leaned forward, a frown marring her face. “It was him, and it was you—and now there’s only you, darling. How could I stay away?”

Joan thought of Sherlock, of what he would say, and the knowledge that he, in fact, would never say anything about it, not ever, shook her. She placed her hands over her face and breathed deeply, but tears edged out of her closed eyes anyway. Soon they were on her cheeks, and spilling onto her palms, in her mouth and on her tongue. Somewhere, a chair scraped against a hardwood floor. Then, Moriarty was beside her, not touching her but close. She whispered in Joan’s ear:

“Dearest Joan, I’m sorry. I am so very sorry.” She touched Joan’s nape, pushing aside her hair. Briefly, Joan felt her lips at the base of her neck, and they seemed like a balm. Like relief. “You’re broken, aren’t you?”

Joan pushed away, gently. Through her watery gaze, she saw that Moriarty’s eyes were ringed pink.

“So are you,” she said. Was it recrimination?

Moriarty touched Joan’s cheek. It was a fleeting caress. Her fingers became wet with Joan’s tears, and she brought them to the side her own face. Joan’s tears were hers.

“Then we’ll have to put each other back together. Won’t we?”

There was nothing Joan wanted to say about that. Moriarty sat down again and said, “May I have a cup of tea?”  
  
Joan pointed to the kettle in the kitchen and watched, and waited. There would be time to think it through, to make decisions based in logic and fact. Not now. Not with fresh tears stinging. Not with her heart lodged in her throat. She felt she could do anything in that moment, and it wouldn’t matter.

And so she waited.


End file.
